India Narrative

  Widespread anger is simmering among civilians in Pakistan against the top military leadership ever since former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took on the Bajwa-Khan partnership. In a significant multi-party virtual conference held in Islamabad last Sunday, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif speaking from London, hit out at the Pakistan Army, accusing it of installing Imran Khan’s incompetent government, wrecking Pakistan’s economy and foreign relations, censoring media and indulging in massive corruption. He said it is very important that Pakistan’s armed forces stay away from the governmental system according to the country’s Constitution and the founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s vision, and not interfere with the people’s choice. “We have made this country a joke in our own eyes and internationally as well,” Sharif said. The former prime minister, who was deposed in 2017 and jailed in a corruption case in Pakistan, has been in the UK for medical treatment since November last year. The confere...

  Bangladesh President Abdul Hamid said that India and Bangladesh are loyal friends and closest neighbours as High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh made a farewell call on him at Bangabhaban. He thanked the Indian government and people for their various health and humanitarian support during her tenure. Applauding the initiatives taken to tranport goods by sea from Kolkata during the Covid period, Hamid said trade and investment between the two neighbour countries have increased as a result of road, rail, sea and air connectivity between Bangladesh and India extended than before. He said he hopes that the two countries would expand multidimensional communication and take initiative to utlisise every field of cooperation in future too. “The journey started from the time of the Liberation War of 1971, now it has reached new heights,” Abdul Hamid said to Indian outgoing HC. Ganguly said India and Bangladesh share important relations. A new horizon has been opened in the transporta...

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) India today urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to close all slaughterhouses and meat shops on Gandhi Jayanti. “I am writing to you from Peta India on behalf of our two million members and supporters with a request that all slaughterhouses and meat shops in India be closed on every Gandhi Jayanti,” Peta India said in the letter written to the Prime Minister. Peta’s vegan outreach coordinator Kiran Ahuja said that October 2 commemorates the ‘Father of the Nation’ Mahatma Gandhi who advocated non-violence and vegetarianism. Peta India said eating animal-based foods wreaks havoc on human health which stands in direct contrast to the purpose of the Central government’s ‘Eat Right India’ and ‘Fit India Movement’ initiatives. Shutting slaughterhouses and meat shops at least on Gandhi Jayanti would encourage the public to eat healthy, eco-friendly and most importantly humanely produced plant-based foods, Ahuja added. “Such measures have been ...

  Prime Minister Narendra Modi today extended an invitation to Denmark for joining India, Japan and Australia’s joint effort at creating alternative supply chains to China’s. In a virtual bilateral summit hosted by India, the Prime Minister told his counterpart in Denmark, Mette Frederiksen on Monday that Covid-19 has shown that it is risky for global supply chains to be highly dependent on any single source. Though Prime Minister Modi did not name Beijing, the international community following the Coronavirus pandemic has come to realise the pitfalls of over-dependence on China, the largest exporter of manufactured goods to the world. The events of the past several months have made it clear how necessary it is to work together like-minded countries like ours, which share a rules-based, transparent, humanitarian and democratic value-system, he said. “We are working together with Japan and Australia for supply-chain diversification and resilience. Other like-minded countries can al...

Government-owned National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), the second-largest lender to Reliance Commercial Finance Limited (RCF) with over Rs 1,100 crore of secured loan exposure has given clean chit to RCF and has removed its red flag. Nabard is a part of the consortium of lenders and is a signatory to an Inter Creditor Agreement (ICA) executed between the lenders of RCF under June 7, 2019 circular of RBI on the resolution of stressed assets. Nabard had classified the account of RCF as Red Flag on February 25, 2020. Thereafter lenders conducted a detailed forensic audit by Grant Thornton (GT). At a meeting of the Consortium of Lenders led by Bank of Baroda, held on Friday September 25, 2020, Nabard informed the consortium of lenders that having examined the GT forensic report, it found no element of fraud and has therefore removed the red flag. Earlier, Delhi High Court on August 14 had stayed a move by Bank of Baroda, the leader of Consortium of Bank, to classif...

  A mysterious virus from Wuhan, China, has torpedoed global development and economy, leading to a geopolitical shift that is still unfathomable. The communist country’s march as the world’s sole superpower is halted in its tracks, creating governance issues for the Leader for Life Xi Jinping, who had been consolidating power for himself over the last few years. Dr. Jagannath P. Panda, research fellow, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (MPIDSA), talks to Rahul Kumar of  IndiaNarrative.com  about the challenges for China and President Xi. Panda is also the Series Editor for  Routledge Studies on Think Asia . He can be  found on Twitter . India Narrative: Is there any opposition to Chinese President Xi Jinping in the party over his strong-arm policies? Do you think he faces a challenge now or in the near future? Panda:  The gradual unravelling of cracks in Xi Jinping’s hold over the Communist Party of China (CPC) is becoming more app...

Actor-singer-filmmaker Farhan Akhtar today spoke out against what he feels is vitriolic news reporting. “Combined with Lata-ji’s birthday and Shaheed Bhagat Singh’s birth anniversary, here’s some more good news today. Sincerely hope that the top brands in question follow through on their valid concern about vitriolic news reporting,” tweeted Farhan from his verfied account. His tweet comes in reaction to a news piece that reads: “India’s top brands want news channels to stop being toxic, warn they could pull the plug on advertising.” Recently, veteran screenwriter and lyricist Javed Akhtar took a jibe at news channels for covering the news about Karan Johar’s last year’s house party, which is making headlines for allegedly being a drugs party. “If Karan johar had invited some farmers too for his party life would have been easier for our TV channels. They would not have had to choose between farmers’ protest and Karan’s party!. it seems that Karan’s do is the second most favorite PARTY...

  New Delhi’s Terminal-2 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport is ready to open up after a gap of six months. The airport will resume operations from October 1. The airport was shut down after all flights were suspended since March 25 in the wake of the stringent nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. At present, only Terminal -3 at the IGIA was operational for passenger travel. While domestic passenger flights have now returned to 60 per cent of pre-Covid occupancy capacity, insiders said that traffic is expected to further pick up in the coming weeks. “The resumption of operations at T-2 will be with 96 air traffic movements (48 departures and 48 arrivals) per day and increase progressively up to 180 by the end of October,” Delhi International Airport (DIAL) said in a statement. “The terminal will resume operations with IndiGo’s 2000 series flights and entire operations of GoAir in the initial phase. About 27 counters – 11 for GoAir and ...

Fake currency notes worth Rs one crore have been deposited in various banks which then deposited the same in the Reserve Bank of India. The assistant manager of Reserve Bank of India in Lucknow’s Metropolitan Kotwali has filed a complaint after fake notes worth Rs one crore were deposited in several banks between 2017 and 2018. Assistant manager Ranjana Maravi said that 15,436 fake notes were deposited in the currency chest of the Reserve Bank of India between October 2017 and March 2018. During the investigation, 9,753 notes of Rs 500 and 5,783 notes of Rs 1,000 were found to be fake. The total fake notes recovered is close to Rs 1.05 crore. Ranjana Maravi has also asked the metropolitan police to conduct a forensic examination of the seized notes. Inspector Mahanagar Yashkant Singh said a case has been registered on the complaint of Ranjana Maravi, and an investigation was underway.

A civilian tour program to the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom has been authorized to resume, the UN Command (UNC) announced today, adding that the resumption date will be soon revealed. Since September 2019, tours to the Joint Security Area (JSA) and other sites inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) have suspended as part of an effort to stem the spread of the highly contagious African swine fever, reports Yonhap News Agency. In a statement, the Command said: “Due to the successful containment efforts and the reduced number of infected swine in the region, the (South Korean) government formally rescinded their request to the UNC to lift the restriction of DMZ access.” The UNC administers Panmunjom and the broader DMZ as an enforcer of the armistice that halted the 1950-53 Korean War. UNC Commander Gen. Robert Abrams authorized the resumption “for routine visitation beginning in the near future” the statement added. Over the past year, South Korea reported a total of 745 Africa...

  Under the international human rights law, the principle of non-refoulement guarantees that no one should be returned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm. This principle applies to all migrants at all times, irrespective of migration status. However, Turkey has gone on a ‘deportation spree’ during the trying times of Covid-19 pandemic, rounding up over 7,000 Afghan refugees — who had fled to escape conflict and the worst excesses of the Taliban — and sending them back to war-torn Afghanistan in the last few months. Amnesty International has revealed how detainees have been pressured to sign documents (presumed to be voluntary repatriation forms) written in Turkish, a language refugees are unable to understand, and forced back to danger. The human rights organization spoke to several Afghan men and women who’ve been forcibly detained in various camps, like the one at Duzici in the foothills of th...

Pakistan resorted to unprovoked firing and shelling on Indian positions today on the Line of Control in J&K’s Rajouri district . “At about 3.50 p.m. today, Pakistan initiated unprovoked ceasefire violation by firing with small arms and shelling with mortars along the LoC in Nowshera sector of Rajouri district. Naya Pakistan “The Indian Army is retaliating befittingly,” said Colonel Devender Anand, defence ministry spokesman. Since the beginning of this year, Pakistan has been violating with impunity the bilateral ceasefire agreement signed by the two countries in 1999. 24 civilians have been killed and over 100 injured in over 3,186 ceasefire violations by Pakistan on the LoC since January 2020. Cross-border shelling has brought insurmountable suffering in the lives of thousands of people living in villages close to the LoC whose lives, cattle and agricultural fields stand at great peril when shells start raining from across the LoC.

  Hundreds of protestors gathered outside the Chinese Consulate office in Vancouver last night to demand the release of two Canadians who have been detained by Beijing since 2018. Massive protest against China in Vancouver IN Bureau Updated September 29, 2020 14:13 IST     Hundreds of protestors gathered outside the Chinese Consulate office in Vancouver last night to demand the release of two Canadians who have been detained by Beijing since 2018. As IndiaNarrative.com had reported a few months ago , not just the Indians but many Canadians are also hugely upset with China right now after two of its citizens — Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, a businessman — were charged with spying by Beijing and put up at an undisclosed location without any consular access. ‘Friends of Canada-India’, along with seven other organizations, while raising slogans against Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), raised concerns over China’s new...